Saturday, May 15, 2010

Surname Saturday - Landon

I have to go back to my great grandmother for my connection to the Landon family. She was known in our family as Emma Harriet Landon Bellinger, wife of John William Bellinger. Other sources have shown her name as Harriet Emma. Either way, she is the starting point of my Landon roots.

Emma was born in Boone county, Illinois, one of ten children born to Daniel Landon and his wife, Anne Jane McVoy.

It is through the Landon family that my roots go back to Francis Cooke and Stephen Hopkins, passengers on the Mayflower.

There is very little that I know about Emma. She came to Cass county, Nebraska with her parents at a young age. At 17, she married John William Bellinger. Census records show them moving between Lincoln, Nebraska and Greenwood, Nebraska. They also lived in Fremont, Nebraska for a short time.

Emma and John had three children: Clifford Bellinger, Sina Bellinger (my grandmother) and Harry Bellinger. She died at age 53.

What I do know of Emma is in the pages of the scrapbook she started and that was continued by her daughter, Sina, after Emma's death. The scrapbook was an old catalog of supplies used to build houses. The scrapbook was full of articles she had clipped out of newspapers and pasted onto the catalog pages. The articles chronicled the lives and deaths of many of the Landon and Bellinger family and friends. This scrapbook gave me my first real taste of reading newspaper articles about my ancestors. Sources of the articles were never cited, but the date the article appeared in the newspaper was nearly always written down. She also saved poems and essays that appeared in the newspapers of her day.

It is through this Landon line that our family is related to former Kansas governor and presidential candidate, Alf Landon. Our common ancestors are Daniel Landon and Dorothy Holdrege. Our Landon family was detailed quite thoroughly by Joy Deal Lehmann in her Landon Family History (1988).

Our Landons came from England. Some sources suggest that the name was shortened from Langdon. In 1840, the highest concentration of Landons in the United States was in New York and Ohio. The predominant occupation of Landons was farming, followed by laborers.

As a youngster, I thought that I might have been related to actor Michael Landon, who was known for portraying Little Joe Cartwright on the Bonanza television show. Then I read in a fan magazine that his real name was Eugene Orowitz, so that was the end of that fantasy!

3 comments:

Oh you did make me smile!! I always had a "thing" about Michael Landon and never knew til reading your post what his real name was!!

Where are your Landons from in the UK? It's not a name I have come across a great deal in my own research(none in my family as far as I know), but I have searched through sooooooooo many registers. Have come across some in Buckinghamshire but more often in London.

I love the photo of your great grandmother, it's so good to see these rather than just have the names of our ancestors!!

Susan I just came across this I am a Landon decendent and also from the Mayflower of Francis Cooke and Stephen Hopkins I am researching William Landon born 1747/48 son of Mercy Orange and William sr. If you get this and would like to share on the Landon family I would appreciate very much. I am trying to connect My Daniel Landon their son born 1774 to his daughter Almira Landon McKinney born Fort Wayne IN. 1810 then moved to Piqua Ohio Miami county her father Daniel was killed by Natives in 1818 on way home from Fort to Piqua body never recovered I ddo have his declartion of death from Probate court filed so his wife and 4 children could get on with her life. Thank you for reading this and I hope to hear from you.